Often in the academic world the terms accounting and finance are used interchangeably or in blocks. The roots of this lie in the secondary education which starts with accounting and ends with higher education merging with finance. But there is a need to understand that there is a very fine line between them and scope of both of the specializations vary, requires different expertise and hence are different career options for the students. The need here is to analyze the skills and interest of the students.
While juggling to choose a major between accounting and finance it is important to create a difference between the two.
Accounting is a branch which helps in analyzing the financial position of the company through various accounting tools and it is highly systematic in nature whereas finance is mainly concerned with fund management, resource allocation and is mostly analytical in nature.
Career Option-Accounting or Finance?
Very often students question about the realm of both the fields and the million dollar question is which is best to choose as a career option?.The contentment here is that the question is realizing the different polarity of the specializations and answer is that there is no perfect answer to this. It completely depends on the ultimate career objective of the student and the kind of skills he/she possesses.
Career options in Accounting
Students who are good at mathematical skills and understand the concepts of accounting very well can specialize in the domain of financial analysis, data audit, tax, risk assessment, financial reporting, payroll. Even they can go for becoming an independent chartered accountant, cost and management accountant by attaining the highest qualification in the field of accounting.
Career Options in Finance
Diving deep in the financial world opens the door of enormous opportunities in the arena of stock markets, mutual funds, analytics, banking, insurance, economics, international trade & business, corporate financing, brokers, corporate restructuring etc. Finance specialization demands an understanding of working of economy and its structural partners like financial institutions, financial markets, financial intermediaries and financial services. Apart from these a student can go for clearing certifications from National institute of Securities market, a branch of National stock exchange of India. NSE provides various certifications in the fields of mutual funds, depositories, capital market, currency market, commodities market, insurance, derivatives, credit rating and many more. These certifications can help a lot to have a good start in the field of finance
The weight of above listed specializations increases when you take your undergraduate degree from the best BBA college and postgraduate degree from best MBA college. We at JIMS offer you the best BBA and B.Com programme through highly experienced faculties and mentors.
Considering Accounting and Finance as one is a wrong notion and it is quiet imperative to understand that both are equivalent in scope and opportunities. As more and more experience you gain as a professional in both of the fields it gives you outstanding benefits in terms of knowledge, pay and reputation.The bottom line is that whether as a student you choose accounting or finance you should have a clear understanding of either of the subject and an interest to dig deeper and deeper into it.
Associate Professor
Delhi Institute of Higher Education
JIMS Noida